Pressure Project I
Posted: September 9, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »For our first pressure project, I deeply appreciated that this was an opportunity to focus on design. As a choreographer, I have frequently regarded visual design as something deeply unknown to me. This is perhaps revealing of my narrow definition of design as so much of choreography lives within spatial design and revels in enacting movement amongst and between bodies thus producing tensions and eliciting questions for audiences.
In considering spatial design of space, I found myself observing the common areas of the dance department particularly the green room and its close proximity to the dance studios, restrooms and the water dispenser. The water dispenser is such a deeply important aspect of the dance department—in between classes and during class break times, a line tends to gather as everyone refills their water bottles.
As evidenced by the diagram, the water dispenser is directly across the hall from studio 370 which allows for easy access. In the visual design of the water dispenser, I noticed that I always watch the number count. There is something so deeply satisfying about seeing the numbers change and to know that your water bottle is responsible for that change.
From this moment, I was intrigued by this form of positive reinforcement by the water dispenser and I found myself wondering how there could be other forms of positive reinforcement.
To offer both a heroic and villainous design suggestion for the dispenser, I imagined the water dispenser as having the ability to either sing joyfully or to roast you as it fills up a water bottle. Fundamentally, the water dispenser would have the ability to sense if a water bottle was placed either from the right or left hand side of the dispenser. If a water bottle is placed from the right hand side, the dispenser would sing a joyous jingle. If a water bottle is placed from the left hand side, the dispenser would roast you for not filling up your water yet, asking if you were skipping class, or if you had met your daily water count.
Both options offer a form of positive reinforcement where the singing or roasting offer a form of added stimuli to the action of filling up a water bottle. I wonder how this experience might linger for users of the water dispenser. Would the users sing the water dispenser jingle long after they left Sullivant Hall? Would they be terrified by the roasting and avoid ever using that particular water dispenser?
After our group conversation and feedback, it is very clear that water dispensers are deeply important and have the potential to activate strong feelings and reactions. The sensory act of drinking water activates a shift in awareness in our corporeal bodies and I find myself curious how that experience can become even more sensorial through the inclusion of various sounds in a water dispenser.